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Life Active Newsletter - July 2010 - Sent Wednesday, July 14, 2010 View as plaintext
 Life Active News


Welcome to the July edition of the Life Active Newsletter!
 
 And here we are in the beginning of winter. Apologies for the lateness of the news but moving premises and not having internet access has unfortunately gotten in the way this month...
July is not only the perfect time to stay indoors and try some revitalising mixed berry mulled wine (alcohol optional), or fly off to warmer climes, but the best time to focus on your own superhealth goals. 

So what is superhealth?

I define it as existing at the peak of your own experience, far beyond simply being "not sick".
It's that sense of physical (and subsequent mental/emotional) wellbeing that you get when you know you can do pretty much anything you could want to achieve physically. When the feeling of energy and strength just lets you feel nearly invincible. It's a nice feeling and we generally do get glimpses of it - often when things "align" with your mental state, like walking through a peaceful forest or completing a race or physical challenge successfully.

I believe that that can, with our current knowledge, become much more the norm in our experience. With more facilities for activity, science behind nutrition and exercise, and far more available Rest&Relax time, superhealth is within all our grasps!

I'll be covering over future newsletters one particular model I developed over a few years to guide the quest towards maintaining fantastic physical wellbeing. It's nothing extraordinary, there's no magic to it - just a little work each day towards feeling great for decades, using only what we have available to us as individuals. 
I call it the SHARPEN model, and it stands for 
Sleep - Hygiene - Awareness - Rest&Relaxation - Posture - Exercise - Nutrition

Now it's pretty much that simple, though I have got a set of assessments and guides for each :)

This issue though - some advice about keeping up your immune system, and reassessing the bench press.

Andrew


Winter immunity

As the chills arrive this July, it's important to keep your immune system in tip top shape, not only to keep yourself in 100% condition for work and training, but more importantly so that you don't miss a beat of potential fun in life!

Your immunity is modulated by a number of bodily "defense" mechanisms, ranging from secretory oozes, proteins that swim throughout your blood stream, to whole cell armies that co-ordinate anti-invader warfare like a surgical strike. 

It's also a system that is very delicately effected by other hormones in your system, notably the ones that control stress (including that kind of "environmental" stress caused by too little sleep and bad diet). Ever notice how you always seem to get sick when you can least afford to? At the completion of a big project, or at the beginning of a holiday or weekend. It's your body dealing with the after-effects of you overtaxing your system to achieve something, whilst leaving your health behind.

Thankfully there are a number of things that you can do to beat the lurgy this winter and keep your immune system in as great a shape as you.

1. Get plenty of rest

This is obvious, and a regular feature of my "tips" lists! Let's remember that I don't mean just sleep here. Unless you're taking some time regularly to just have fun - whether it's reading, writing, painting, socialising, or playing video games - you're draining your life battery. Fun is really a recharge mechanism. Laughing is a physical action that has a major effect on all those stress hormones, in addition to being a reflection of a happier inner state. Whack on a fave dvd when you're feeling low or sluggish and wait for the feelgood to arrive!

2. Moderate exercise

Yup you guessed it - exercise is great for just about everything! Regular, moderate exercise (both cardio and strength work) is proven to boost your immunity in the long run. How it does it is not quite certain, but there's definitely a benefit to the increased blood flow which can stimulate movement of those immune blood proteins and cells.

When you are sick however, moderate exercise can take a break - see rule 1 above. Only then though! Cold and wet outside is not an excuse to not keep moving!

3. Supplements and nutrition

There are a few natural food "medicines" that can help your immune system.

* Yoghurt or probiotic supplements - these help improve levels of good digestive bacteria, in turn having a beneficial effect on disease resistance, digestion and weight control.

* Mushrooms - these have their own 'magic' in terms of boosting your immunity. Shiitake and reishii are naturopathic remedies to aid an ailing immune system, available in either the whole or supplement form.

* Zinc and vitamin C - two supplements that can help boost your immune system. Either taken in tab/capsule form, or from natural sources like citrus fruits and berries (Vit C) or red meat / shellfish (zinc)



Benching the bench press

The bench press is one of the best mass-building exercises for your chest, hands-down. Nothing beats the amount of weight you can heft with both arms simultaneously pushing on a bar, which in turn leads to the biggest gains.

It's not however the most spectacular exercise for shoulder health, especially when done incorrectly, too frequently over too long a time, or with poor strength balance around the shoulder joint.

* Every year it's suggested to take at least 6-12 weeks off the bench press, if you've been doing it for more than a year already, to let the soft tissues fully recover.

* Shoulder blade position 

(I hear clients groaning from here) 

plays a big role in how healthy this exercise is for your shoulders. 

  • In early phases it's best to train yourself to keep your shoulder blades at least partially retracted (ie squeezed together behind your back) whilst benching, to lengthen out tight chest muscles and teach the movement. 

  • Once this is learned, it is far more beneficial to allow more complete movement of the shoulder/shoulder blade/arm complex when lifting. The bones and muscles around the shoulder were designed to allow co-ordination in both pulling and pushing actions, and long-term scapula retraction will end up leading to increased chance of injury.
  • Cables, incline presses, push-ups and single hand dumbbells all allow this co-ordination and should replace bench pressing at least one week out of 6.
* The muscles that move the clavicle/scapula/humerus (the three bones that articulate to form the "shoulder") should be kept in relative strength balance. Charles Poliquin, a famous strength coach, developed a picture of the ideal strength ratios around the shoulder joint. For example, if you can bench press 100kg, you should be able to do 8 behind-the-neck shoulder presses with about 67kg, or single-arm shoulder press with 29kg each hand, for about 8 reps.

Being out of balance around the shoulder joint is again more likely to lead to damage, pain or injury.
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  Sydney seminars

Within the next month or so I will be running some mini seminars on peak health, how to use gyms to achieve your goals, supplements and nutrition etc. These will be mostly in the Surry Hills area - some at Golds Gym, and others I haven't found the venue for yet!

I shall keep you posted, though if you are interested in attending, or know anyone who would like to come along (they're only planned to be short - 20 mins for the gym-based ones, up to 45 mins for the "health made easy" ones) drop me an email!

     

                                              Life Active - Andrew Greig





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